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Project Overview
A small UAV was flown as part of the first response to a scripted emergency scenario in which terrorist activity was simulated in the northern section of the Moffett Federal Airfield, adjacent to NASA Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley. Volunteers, playing the roles of infiltrating terrorists, penetrated Security boundaries and contributed to the emergency scenario. An on-site Incident Command Center instructed the UAV team to provide airborne surveillance data in near-real time.
The UAV payload featured a uniquely packaged suite of instruments that included color and thermal IR digital cameras, a color videocam, and a chemical sensor. The acquired data were downlinked wirelessly to the UAV ground station for immediate processing and interpretation. Using the RGB digital imagery, the analyst was the first to locate a suspicious vehicle on a controlled access road. Using the live video stream, the analyst located two suspicious unauthorized boats in a nearby evaporation pond on south San Francisco Bay. The georeferenced data were then transmitted to the Incident Commander’s customized display screens. The ICC instructed the UAV team to provide ongoing surveillance and positioning information until the suspicious subjects were identified or apprehended by the NASA Ames Security. This Homeland Security demonstration further established the potential value of operating small UAVs in the National Airspace System over urban environments.
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